Don't knock university reports, if they anticipate issues that can be addressed then lives and money can be saved. The challenge is to articulate the problem in a persuasive enough manner that the car companies become engaged in solving the problem rather than denial. With luck, perhaps the manufacturers could both solve the problem and intercept other failure modes before they occur.

Tom, yeah, I know, US is far far behind on smart cards. But people in the U.S. --not everyone, though -- do use SIM card inside their mobile handsets. Now, that's the same smart card technology I am talking about here in the article.

A great deal of knowledge about security -- how you partition your chip; how to harden the security, etc. -- has been learned by those who designed secure microcontrollers for chip cards. And some of the underlying technologies are now being applied to the automotive industry.

And your comment about automakers have a higher authority to answer to? Well, here, I am not talking about "remote-control cars; i am talking about the potential of a modern car getting remotely manupilated by external hackers. There are no regulators watching that type of automotive security.

I would tend to agree. They don't want to increase effort or add the expense, especially if the perceived threat is in doubt among some. I can imagine some high-end cars adding this type of security, though. But as far as wide adoption, I am afraid it's going to take a crisis. But they really should get out in front of it, because if something like that does happen, they are going to need years to get the security in place.

The beautiful 250 GT. I think an even more gorgeous Ferrari was the 275 GTS, perhaps. The immediate successor of the 250.

Interesting point about this is that Ferrari and Alfa Romeo engines of those days were already factory tuned to about their limit. Not much one could do aftermarket, to improve on them.

Contrast those with the very common American V-8s of those days, usually married to an anemic 2-barrel carburator and single exhaust. It was not hard to double their horsepower, or even more than double, something that repogramming an ECU these days is hardly likely to achieve. And then, the chassis of that car would be totally outclassed.

Yes there are those "service" companies. On the other hand, you can get such programming devices for only 250 euros over the internet. There was shortly an article about odometer fraud in Germany on the homepage of the Association of German Engineers (VDI). Sorry, it is in German. But there is a picture of a programming device: